Adams (Dora) papersMSS. 667. 1955-1991 and undated. 4 cubic feet.

Correspondence, speeches, notes, organizational materials, publications, newspaper clippings and other materials created and collected by Dora Adams (1912-1990), a community activist from West Point, Mississippi. Dora Adams was interested in civil rights, political issues, and the welfare and safety of the citizens of West Point, Mississippi, and other areas. Dora Adams was the coordinator of the Clay County Welfare Rights Organization. The Adams papers bulk with national, state and local organizational materials.

Records of the organization, which was organized in Starkville in 1930, include minutes, financial records, bylaws, newsletters, yearbooks, histories, scrapbooks, reports, and other materials produced and collected from the organization's founding to the present. Included also are publications including The Gleanings, The Graduate Woman, and The AAUW Outlook. The records are arranged in five series documenting the local, state, regional, national, and international activities of the branch. Additions to the records are anticipated.

Barksdale (Jo) papersMSS. 661. 1825-2008. circa 3 cubic feet.

The collection includes correspondence, legal materials, memorabilia, photographs and other materials comprising the Mississippi Writers Association records, 1988-2002. Also included are the personal papers of Jo Barksdale, including writings, photographs, articles, cookbooks and other materials concerning her activities as a caterer and cookbook author and two historic cookbooks (1893 and 1895). Genealogy and family history materials include materials concerning the Stevens, MacGehee, Ruffin, Williams and Barksdale families, 1825-2008. Additions expected.

Bowman (Sr. Thea) papers MSS. 722. . .33 cu. feet

Materials related to the life and work of Sister Thea Bowman (1937-1990), originally from Yazoo
City, Mississippi. This collection contains emails, newspaper clippings, correspondence,
handwritten speeches, drafts of a bio-bibliography, photographs, an estate inventory, and a
publication by Sister Bowman, "What do Negros Want."

Cole (Lucy Wellborn) collectionMSS. 396. 1983. 0.08 cubic feet.

Recollections of Mrs. Cole: "Childhood Memories of the Starkville Methodist Church in the Early Decades of the Century," "Food Preparation in Starkville in the Early 1900's," "My Recollection of Starkville Public School."

Colley-Lee (Myrna) papersMSS. 635. circa 1920-2011. 40 cubic feet.

Papers of costume designer Colley-Lee of Charleston, Mississippi, include scripts, playbills, photographs, design materials, sketches, rehearsal materials, research materials for plays; costumes created for Steppenwolf Theater production of "The Wedding Band", 2003; vintage costume collected by Colley-Lee as a part of her Glad Rags Collection; other costumes created and/or worn to special events by Colley-Lee; digital reproductions of costume sketches drawn by Colley-Lee; personal correspondence; materials from the exhibit 'Glad Rags: Sketches, Swatches and Costume Designs'; clippings, articles and publications; records of community and philanthropic activities; materials relating to her personal and family life. Some restrictions apply. Additions expected.

Correspondence, articles and clippings, speeches, photographs, awards, audiotapes and other records documenting the journalistic career of Fields (1923-2010), reporter for the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. Fields in 1975 was made capitol news reporter. She is the first female Mississippi journalist to head a full-time capitol news bureau. Field's papers reflect local and state events during her early years as a reporter, including material such as her 1967 multi-part series on her interview with a disillusioned Klan member. For the period from 1975 until Field's retirement in 1988, the papers include much material on legislative sessions and issues, women's rights, local and state politics, and the elections and gubernatorial administrations of Cliff Finch, Bill Allain, William Winter and Ray Mabus. An oral history by Dr. Lawrence Strout was added in 2009.

National, state and local Girl Scout Club materials collected by troop leader Lonna Reinecke, formerly of Starkville. Included are membership records and other documentation of the activities of various Starkville and Oktibbeha County Girl Scout troops, as well as materials documenting the Girl Scouts of Northeast Mississippi Council and the Prairie Girl Scout Council. Unprocessed. Preliminary inventory available.

Gray (Elizabeth) papersMSS. 492. 1953-1980. 1.34 cubic feet.

Papers of Gray (1918-2010), community volunteer, historical researcher, and wife of Malcolm Gray, former MSU Director of Student Housing. Included are correspondence, reports, surveys, clippings, brochures and other printed materials reflecting Gray's activities in the AAUW, Starkville Branch, including materials used to produce the Oktibbeha County Mental Health Survey (1963-1965) yearbooks and other club materials (1962-1978), and articles, speeches and research materials on Oktibbeha 16th Section School lands, 1974-1975. Other materials document Oktibbeha County Historical and Genealogical Society projects, 1973-1980, the Oktibbeha County Committee on Education (1953-1954), the 1960 Oktibbeha County Census, and other matters. A single folder contains material on Malcolm Gray's activities with the Starkville Army Advisory Committee, 1954-1956. See also Malcolm Gray Papers, University Archives.

The Harriet Bynum Fourniquet family papers consist of fifty-five letters written by members of the
Fourniquet family between 1825 and 1883. The collection also includes several photographs of
Fourniquet and Perkins family members, locks of Fourniquet family hair, a miscellaneous ledger page
and newspaper clipping, court records, and genealogical information on the Fourniquet, Bynum, and
Perkins families.

The collection contains correspondence, manuscripts, interviews, publicity and promotional materials, photographs, publications, audio-visual materials and other memorabilia from the life and literary career of Eudora Welty and collected by Hunter McKelva Cole, colleague and friend of Welty. Cole was Associate Director for Marketing at the University Press of Mississippi during the time when they published many editions of Welty works. Many of the publications and other materials collected by Cole are autographed by Welty.

Carrie McCreight Mims Page (1873-1961), a lifelong resident of Oktibbeha County, Mississippi, probably collected these materials which were found by Mr. C. H. Jackson, who donated them. Most of the collection is associated with Page or her family members. The collection documents everyday life in Starkville, Mississippi, during the period. Materials include World War I correspondence of Wyatt Mims and other war materials; a 1923 broadside about Cuba; receipts and statements, programs, tickets and other memorabilia; photographs, publications and other materials.

Jackson (Rosie L.) papersMSS. 652. 1969-2008. 1 cubic foot.

Collection of Ms. Rosie Lee McKinney Bush Jackson (1917-2008), African-American resident of the Starkville area and an avid cook. The collection primarily contains funeral programs of people in the Starkville African American community, 1968-2008. Some of the funeral programs are from the funerals of African Americans over the age of 100 years. Collection also includes recipes Ms. Jackson used, wrote down, and cut out of the Starkville Daily News. Some of the newspaper articles contained information on African American cooks in the community along with their recipes. African American cooks were rarely in the Starkville Daily News during the 1970's and 1980's. Also in the collection are items from the Cooperative Extension Service at Mississippi State University. Rosie Jackson was a member of Griffin Chapel United Methodist Church and the collection includes some items concerning Griffin Chapel as well as other local African American churches in the Starkville area.materials, recipes, newspaper clippings of African-American cooks and local citizens, and other miscellaneous papers.

Papers of Kaufman, musician, teacher and community organizer, document her education in Brookfield, Missouri, and her career, family life and social and organizational activities in Starkville, Mississippi. Materials include correspondence, programs, music, organizational files, household subject files, scrapbooks, certificates, clippings, photographs, student materials, publications. Includes Lois Kaufman musical instrument collection. Kaufman designed and taught the first Music Appreciation class for MSU students in the 1950s. Also included are the papers of Mabel Logsdon, teacher and friend of Kaufman. Local organizations documented include the Starkville-MSU Symphony Orchestra and other symphonies in Mississippi, the Nocturne Music Club and the Mississippi Federation of Music Clubs, the East-West Fellowship of Starkville. International musical instruments are those collected by Kaufman during her travels and reflect her interest in international affairs. Addition: Materials of Harold Kaufman concerning his work in sociology and rural life and personal materials of the Kaufmans; unprocessed.

The Mississippi Media Professionals (Mississippi Press Women) records contain diverse materials pertaining to the various aspects of the organization from 1958 to 2000, including correspondence, financial records, scrapbooks, and newsletters. The records also document the Mississippi Media Professional's involvement in the National Federation of Press Women.

Nash (Virginia) collectionMSS. 517. 1924-1997. 1.25 cubic feet.

Scrapbooks, photographs, articles and publications documenting the history of Starkville and Oktibbeha County, Mississippi. Included are scrapbooks, photographs and articles documenting the Oktibbeha County Historical and Genealogical Society and the Hic-a-Sha-Ba-Ha Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, publications concerning the Nash family, historical editions of newspapers and reprints of historical Mississippi maps.

Articles, scrapbooks, clippings, and other items written or collected by Mary Lucille Peacock (circa 1901-1985), librarian, historian, and genealogist of Aberdeen, Mississippi. For many years she headed the Evans Memorial Library in Aberdeen. Among the major subjects are the Evans Memorial Library and the history of Aberdeen and Monroe County, Mississippi. Included are numerous articles written by Miss Peacock and published in library journals.

Diary (1837-1844), obituaries (1893), biographies, address to a graduating class, photograph, medical notebook (1838), and notebook containing a list of students of the Newton Female Institute (1842-1851) and notes from medical lectures on horses. Phares, a physician, studied in Louisiana, lived much of his life in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, and was appointed to the faculty of Mississippi A&M College in 1880.

Collection of Robert Pittman of Coffeeville, Mississippi, includes Lee B. Hazlewood account and daybooks (1898-1907); Mary Person's autograph album (1851-1852 and undated); undated carte de visite of two girls taken in Memphis; three letters and a writing (undated) from W.S. Blount to his sister Betty Hazelwood concerning the Civil War service of their brother G.G. (George G. Blount) in the 15th Mississippi Infantry, Company B (Winona Stars); sheet music (placed with Music Collection).

Raymond was a lawyer, Presbyterian minister, teacher and president of Marion Female Institute, and Confederate chaplain. Family and professional correspondence (1850-1949) relating to Raymond's activities as minister, chiefly in Mississippi, and in Marion, Alabama, and Weatherford, Texas; diary, Marion, Alabama (1857); Starkville Women Club's programs including a minute book (1891); minutes (1879) of the Presbyterian Synod of Alabama; 3 scrapbooks relating to religious matters, church activities, and family affairs; genealogical and family records (1856-1910), information about various members of the family in Mississippi, Alabama, and other states; and a few Civil War papers. In part microfilm made in 1958 from originals owned by Jesse Owen, Starkville, Mississippi. Addition in process.

Family papers of Nannie Herndon Rice, librarian at Mississippi State University. Correspondence, diaries, genealogical data, deeds, ledgers, claims, estate papers, bills of sale for slaves, rent and labor contracts, school reports (1866-71), photographs and other papers of Miss Rice and members of her family. Papers of Miss Rice describe Meadow Woods, the Rice plantation in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi, her student days at Mississippi State College for Women, Columbia University, Vassar College Training Camp for Nurses, and the University of Illinois, and associations as a librarian at Mississippi State University. Other papers include those of Miss Rice's grandparents, John W. Rice and Augusta (Hopkins) Rice, her father, Arthur H. Rice, physician and planter of Oktibbeha County, Mississippi, her great-uncle and aunt, John James Walker and Maria (Hopkins) Walker, her paternal great-grandfather, Arthur Francis Hopkins, of Alabama, and others, relating to the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Mississippi Legislature, travel in Europe, and other subjects. Correspondents include Braxton Bragg, H.L. Mencken, Pauline V. Orr, LeRoy Percy, LeRoy Pope Walker, Percy Walker, Richard Henry Wilde, and John Sharp Williams. Unpublished guide in the library. Information on literary rights available in the library. Additions: In process.

Papers of Confederate officer and journalist, of Canton, Mississippi. Correspondence of Ross, his wife, his son James Ross, and other relatives; legal papers; bills; receipts; manuscripts of short stories; poems; newspapers; and a diary (completed by Ross) of a Union Soldier killed in a battle. The Civil War letters include some from Ross in camp, hospital, and battle, to his wife. Correspondence of related families includes 68 Bell family letters (1861-75) chiefly relating to Georgia and Confederate military campaigns; 29 Wailes-Magruder letters (1825-69) chiefly from southern Mississippi and letters (1849-63) of Sophie Collins, a young woman who became a refugee in Mississippi and Louisiana. Unpublished calendar in the library.

Photocopies of a scrapbook of writings, photographs and obituaries concerning the family of Thomas George Sellers, minister of First Baptist Church (1857-1899) and founder of the Starkville Female Institute (later the Maxwell home). Includes writings by Sallie Graves Sellers, Thomas Freeman Sellers and Suzanne Sellers Jones, and concerns the Sellers extended family, and Starkville, Mississippi, history.

Papers of Edgar Elijah Shippey (1873-1928), and his wife Lenna Taylor Shippey (1881-1965), who were born and grew up in Mississippi, but lived most of their married lives in Wister, Oklahoma. Included are letters between Lenna Taylor and Edgar Shippey, primarily before their marriage (1898-1901, 1914), from Paris, Mississippi, Memphis, and Fort Smith, Arkansas; scattered letters to and from friends (1901, 1905, 1943-1947); letters of Jeff Taylor of Fort Smith, Arkansas and Poteau, Oklahoma from friends and associates in Banner, Mississippi (1899-1913; contract (1911), assessments (1909-1910), and estate inventory (1929); commencement program, medical cards and other materials, 1898-1926 and undated; family Bible record; photographs. Papers document twentieth century life in Mississippi and Fort Smith Arkansas, medical education and practice, and provide some details of life in Wister, Oklahoma, 1901-1929, and the Shippey family. Also included are two photographs of the Shippey home and a clipping about Mrs. Shippey.

Short (Mary Ellen) papersMSS. 267. 1869. 0.01 cubic feet: 1 item.

Smith (Hazel Brannon) papersMSS. 445. 1945-1976. 0.75 cubic feet.

Letters, clippings, pamphlets, certificates, artifact and other materials concerning Smith (1914-1994). The bulk of Smith's papers were destroyed in a fire at the Lexington Advertiser. Smith was born in Gadsden, Alabama, and graduated from the University of Alabama in 1935 with a B.A. in Journalism. In that year she came to Mississippi and purchased the Durant News. By 1943, that paper was successful enough to allow Smith to purchase the Lexington Advertiser, which she edited and published from 1943 to 1983. Smith purchased the Banner County Outlook (Flora) in 1956 and the Northside Reporter (Jackson) in 1956. Smith used her column "Through Hazel's Eyes" and her editorials to comment on social injustice and political corruption. In 1964, because of her stand against the Citizens' Councils, Smith received the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing for her "steadfast adherence to her editorial duty in the face of great pressure and opposition". Smith was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Smith's other awards include the 1st prize award from the National Federation of Press Women 1946 and 1955; and the Herrick Award for Editorial Writing, 1956. Smith was also named Woman of Achievement by the National Federation of Press Women.

Starkville Area Business and Professional Women's Club (Starkville, Mississippi) recordsMSS. 428. 1973-2000. 12.5 cubic feet.

Records of the Starkville Area Business and Professional Women's Club, founded in the 1970s in Starkville, Mississippi, including newsletters, yearbooks, officer's notebooks, scrapbooks and booklets submitted for statewide competition, and publications of affiliated state and national organizations.

Yearbooks and other records from Starkville clubs and organizations collected by various area residents: Civic League of Starkville (1941-1958); Young Women's Club of Starkville (1938-1941); Century Club of Amory (1956-1957); Mississippi Federation of Women's Clubs (1938-1948); Neo Cycle Club yearbooks, 1939-1947; Home and Garden Club (1932-1995); Helping Hands Ministries of Oktibbeha County (1998-2005); Boys and Girls Club (2000-2009); Starkville Parent-Teacher Association Council (1983-1992).

Stuart (Jesse) collectionMSS. 113. 1955-1957. 0.04 cubic feet.

Trigg (Sue Pelham) papersMSS. 284. 1784-1944. 1 reel microfilm.

Papers of Trigg, teacher and historian, of Greenville, Mississippi. Manuscripts of articles by Miss Trigg about Greenville and Washington County, relating to local history; 28 letters (1796-1848) of the Bodley family of Kentucky and Mississippi, chiefly to Thomas H. Bodley, and 10 letters (1784-1788) to Dr. High Shiell of Kentucky. Some of Miss Trigg's articles were published in Memoirs of Henry Tillinghast Ireys, Papers of the Washington County Historical Society, 1910-1915, edited by William D. McCain and Charlotte Capers (1954).

Valiant (Margaret) papersMSS. 87. 1918-1981. 6 cubic feet.

Papers of Como, Mississippi, native Margaret Valiant (1901-1982), musician, organizer of Depression-era programs and Memphis community activist. Collection includes correspondence, reports, clippings, photographs, plays, paintings, scrapbook, and miscellany. Among the many topics are Ms. Valiant's work with the Special Skills Division of the Resettlement Administration and the Music Division of the National Youth Administration, migrant workers, folk music, dramatic productions, population control, and the National Council of the Southern Youth Congress. Correspondents include Eleanor Roosevelt, Leopold Stokowski, Margaret Sanger, Harry Truman, and H. L. Mitchell.

Walker (Noverta) papersMSS. 10. 1847-1949. 3.7 cubic feet.

Family papers of Noverta Walker (1880-1957), seamstress and local historian of Ripley, Mississippi. Letters (1847-1941) from family and friends in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and other states, invitations and programs of social events of Ripley, Mississippi, minute books of the Baptist Young People's Union and the Tuesday Evening Club, clippings, and photos of local and national figures. Also contains eleven scrapbooks of clippings concerning Mississippi persons and subjects compiled by Charlie Walker.

Funeral program, awards and certificates, photographs, publications, and genealogical materials documenting the life of Ella Bardwell Ward (1901-1981), teacher of Starkville, Mississippi, for whom Ward Elementary School is named. Ward is a graduate of Rust College (1933, 1955) and the Tuskegee Summer School for Teachers (1925).

Personal and business correspondence, accounts, receipts, deeds, slave records, tax receipts, military orders, genealogical material and other papers of the James Sykes family of Columbus, Mississippi. Includes letters from cotton brokers in West Point, Mississippi, Mobile, Alabama, St. Louis, Missouri, and New Orleans, Louisiana; letters from Alleghany Springs and Blue Ridge Springs, Virginia, and White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia; letters from Wildie and Ida Sykes at Patapsco Female Institute, Ellicott City, Maryland, and from James W. Sykes, Jr. at Belleview High School, Bedford County, Virginia, and Poughkeepsie Business Institute, New York. Other material relates to Columbus, Mississippi, schools and Columbus Methodist Church. Persons represented include James Sykes (1810-1885), his wife Martha Lanier Sykes (1815-1881), her mother Elizabeth Lanier, his brother William Sykes of Winona, Mississippi, and his grandchildren, Ida (Sykes) Billups (1858-1891) and her husband Thomas Carleton Billups (1839-1898), Wildie (Sykes) Billups and her husband Joseph Saunders Billups, and James W. Sykes, Jr. Additions include correspondence, estate records, farm record ledgers, receipts, photographs, newspapers and other materials.

Family papers concerning the Watson and Wallace families of Strong, Mississippi. Includes: account books of the Strong Community Store, 1900s, 1911-1912 and an account book, 1875-1875 and 1900-1901; pamphlets about Grassland Farms, which was operated by Henry Duke Watson. He raised Rhode Island red chickens and showed them all over the world.

Weeks (Thelma) lettersMSS. 362. 1947. 0.08 cubic feet.

Letters (10) written by Thelma Weeks of Ackerman, Mississippi, while visiting friends in Aquacate, Cuba. Included are detailed descriptions of her plane trip to Havana, tours of a sugar cane mill and the Hershey Mills, a trip to the Methodist Seminary in Matanzas, and various sights in Cuba.

Papers concerning the Wellborn family of Starkville, Mississippi. Primarily materials about Mary Moss Wellborn (1903-1968), activist, including letters, clippings, article and publications created and collected by Dr. Martha Swain concerning Wellborn's participation in the National Woman's Party and her activities on behalf of the George Washington Bicentennial Commission (1932). Also includes letters from other Wellborn family members and a folder of biographical materials on John Henry Wellborn.

Personal papers, correspondence, business records, clippings, photographs, extensive scrapbooks, oral histories, literary manuscripts, reminiscences and other materials concerning Robert Wier (1886-1974) and his wife Sadye Hunter Wier (1905-1995). Robert Wier, who operated and owned the City Barber Shop in Starkville, was the first and only African-American to have a business on Main Street. Sadye Wier was a teacher and home economist. Contains materials documenting the Hunter family of Noxubee County, who operated the Noxubee Industrial School, and the Macon family. Also included are records of Mrs. Wier's work with the Oddfellows Highway Cemetery, the Starkville Public Library and other organizations.